Somewhere or another I read that the human body completely replaces itself on a cellular level every seven years. That means that today I am a completely different person than I was the day my father died, which was seven years ago this morning.

I suppose that’s true in a metaphysical way as well. I know that for the longest time I felt diminished, as though I was no longer the person I was when Daddy was alive. Getting my bookkeeping in order and my weight down were two steps towards getting back to who I was BMD (before Max died). Still, I’m not the same. I’m more melancholy (hard to believe, I know, especially considering I espouse putting Prozac in the city’s drinking water to improve the community at large).

I miss talking football with him. I miss talking baseball and basketball with him. I miss telling him stories about my dogs. I miss him every Sunday when he doesn’t call. I miss him sending me marshmallow Peeps at Easter time, and a weekly envelope full of newspaper clippings.

I miss his acerbic take on politics, and know that the Tea Party would have caused him to burst a blood vessel in his head. I find myself less tolerant of stupidity than ever, and remember the old man’s favorite saying: “I don’t mind ignorance, but I can’t stand stupidity.”

Not a day goes by that I don’t think “What Would Max Do?” and the answer guides my actions. And saying that, what Max would do about this sorrow and emptiness would be to suck it up and do the things that still need to get done. There is no going back, so there is no use in dwelling in the sorrow. Pick yourself up and live in the now, he would tell me, although not in those words.

Nope, Max would say this: you do the things that need to be done first, and then there will always be time to do what you want to do. So I’ll put one foot in front of the other, and wait until tonight, when I can light a candle for my father.